The Romford-based owner of the Ocean Florida tour operation said it had “quietly” started selling through agents in summer 2020 – initially through consortia including the Advantage Travel Partnership and The Travel Network Group, as well as agency chains such as Barrhead Travel.
Harry Hastings, Ocean Holidays’ co-chief executive, told TTG: “We started very quietly and have built that up. Ocean Florida is now selling through the trade and doing great.
“We have a sales team of eight people and a business development manager. We’re really enjoying it and love working with the trade. Over the next 12 to 18 months, we are looking for about 20% of package distribution to be via the trade.”
The company already had relationships with consortia, tour operators and OTAs through its wholesale Ocean Beds brand, which specialises in villas and holiday homes in Florida.
Hastings said Ocean Holidays wanted to “bring healthy competition” to the market after US specialist Funway Holidays ceased trading in September 2020.
Ocean Holidays Group, which also includes luxury travel management specialist Winged Boots, has grown quickly in the past two years, despite the pandemic.
The company is now licenced to carry 41,000 passengers in the current 2021/22 year through its Atol – this compares with 31,000 licenced passengers pre-Covid.
“We will have more than 45,000 passengers travelling between January and December 2022,” added Hastings. “Around 80% of this will be Florida, with some New York, Las Vegas and California as well. The other 20% is through Winged Boots.”
’Enormous order book’
Hastings said the business had “almost doubled in size” during the pandemic, based on revenue from consumer bookings, and the company plans to keep this momentum going.
“If we’ve doubled in size on the B2C business during the pandemic, what happens when consumer confidence returns,” he added. “We’re in a really good situation – we must have been doing something right during the pandemic.”
Hastings admitted Ocean Holidays had enjoyed “a bit of fortune and luck” in its strategy of encouraging clients to rebook to a more long-term date during the pandemic – meaning that they did not have to rebook every few months when travel restrictions to the US remained in place.
“Florida passengers are comfortable booking 12 months in advance,” he said. “We encouraged them not to have unrealistic hopes about the border reopening. Now, we have an enormous order book with forward bookings up to 2025.
“We’ve had a significantly strong start to the year. We’re still doing plenty of bookings to travel this year.”
The company has also launched new programmes designed at improving diversity and inclusion, sustainability and community work across its operations.
